Where Does It End?

Like Charles Barkley at a poker table, SEC athletic directors don’t seem to know when to tighten their purse strings. As a result, operating in the high-stakes world of college football has become more expensive for the rest of the nation.

From a notorious 23 year streak with at least one program on probation (and as many as five at one time), to the $200,000 payment indiscreetly made by a Crimson Tide booster to Alabama’s prized defensive tackle recruit Albert Means in 1999, to Auburn’s failed pursuit of prospective coach Bobby Petrino a year before Tommy Tuberville, the under-contract coach they tried to replace, led the Tigers to an undefeated season, accusations of impropriety, illicit cabals and wantonness are nothing new to the conference.

Don't be shocked to see Urban Meyer paraded out of the locker room atop a bejeweled palanquin or read about LSU's players dining on foie gras and bluefin tuna in their pregame meal this fall.

But the outlay splashed in constructing Tennessee’s supposed “Super Staff” may be the most damaging example of the SEC’s desperation for championship football.

After buying out national championship winner Phillip Fulmer for $6 million in November, Tennessee threw $2 million on the doorstep of Oakland Raiders failure Lane Kiffin. What do you get for $2 million these days? According to his last boss, Raiders owner Al Davis, it will buy you a “flat-out liar.” For an extra $1.2 million, the Volunteers bought the nation’s highest paid assistant coach, Kiffin’s dad Monte.

The spending didn’t stop there.

New defensive line coach Ed Orgeron will make $650,000 in 2009, over three times more than recently departed Purdue defensive coordinator Brock Spack made in 2008. Mississippi endured their first winless conference season in 25 years under Orgeron in 2007. The Rebels ranked 14th in the nation at the conclusion of the 2008 season without him.

Alleged offensive genius Jim Chaney was named coordinator and awarded the princely sum of $380,000. Chaney, most will remember, was gently shoved out of his office in Mollenkopf Athletic Center in 2005. Few Boilermakers fans considered him a candidate for MENSA at the time.

Linebackers coach Lance Thompson, said to be a recruiting whiz, was poached for $350,000 a year from Alabama. The Tide didn’t seem to miss him while landing the nation’s top recruiting class last week.

Peering into the situation from the outside, one would guess the state and University of Tennessee must be waltzing through a fiscal purple patch. Not so, says the state’s own governor.

“… it does pain me to see the athletic department living so high while some of the academic departments are facing some very tough times,” said Gov. Phil Bredesen. “I would hope they would be a little sensitive to that fact.”

Academics?

Mr. Bredesen, as Chairman of the Board of Trustees at Tennessee, should know that football will always precede mere trivial concerns such as education down South.

It’s academic.